Normal With You

Chapter 8

I am a kind word uttered and repeated

By the voice of Nature;

I am a fallen star from the

Blue tent upon the green carpet.

I am the daughter of the elements

With whom Winter conceived;

To whom Spring gave birth; I was

Reared in the lap of Summer and I

Slept in the bed of Autumn.

"Mum?" Riaz walked cautiously into the kitchen. "Mum?"

"I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it." She mumbled continuously from behind the granite island that sat ominously in the middle of the kitchen.

"What happened?" He knelt down before her, carefully sidestepping the pieces of broken glass and food strewn around her. He didn't expect the loud crash in the kitchen to come from her own hands but he wasn't surprised by it either.

"I can't do it. I'm useless," she mumbled again, unmindful of the bits of glass piercing the bottom of her feet and grazing her palms.

"You're not useless." He took her palms in his hand, rubbing over the light red imprints with his thumbs.

"I can't even cook! It spoilt."

She huddled further into herself, rocking herself backwards and forwards.

"Come on..." He lifted her to her feet as if she were a rag doll. She put up no fight nor gave any protest. All that escaped her mouth was a muffled groan of pain as she shifted her weight onto her cut feet.

"I'm useless. He said I'm useless."

He ignored her mumbles and moans as he lifted her frail body into her arms and carried her up the stairs towards her bedroom. She was barely even conscious of the fact that he had picked her up nor did she register the feeling of her soft bed beneath her as he set her down.

"Let me look at your feet." His knee chaffed against the hard wooden floor as he supported her foot on his leg. "Why do you keep doing this to yourself, hmm?" he asked her gently as he pried the little pieces of glass from her foot with a tweezer.

"Because I'm stupid." She winced as he pulled another glass splinter from her foot.

"You're not stupid," he said quietly, wiping away the small trickles of blood away from her skin.

"I am stupid." She sniffed, watching him over the edge of her fingers that rested on top of her raised knee.

"No, you're not stupid." He wrapped her foot in a thin bandage, before he smiled up at her.

"I am. I can't do anything. He doesn't love me. He always calls me stupid." He stood up, watching silently at his mother crying pitifully into her upturned hands as she poured her soul out through her tears.

"Shh Mama." He sat down beside her, his large body seemed to engulf hers as he wrapped his arms protectively around her.

"He doesn't love me. Why doesn't he love me? I love him but he doesn't love me."

The words made him sick.

How could she love him? How could she love a man who destroyed her? He shattered her into pieces without blinking an eye and she loved him. That wasn't love. How could she love a man who beat her and taunted her and ridiculed her?

How could she love a man who raped her?

"He doesn't love me. No one loves me." She mumbled into his chest. "Niemand is lief vir my. Niemand is lief vir my."